A topic about which one reads less on the Internet, but which plays a major role in the visual effect of a before and after result, is the factor “hair count per graft”.
In modern hair transplantation, a graft corresponds to a follicular unit. Hairs do not grow individually, but in small groups. There are groups 1 to 4, in exceptional cases sometimes up to 5 hairs.
When we talk about the number of “grafts” in hair transplantation, it means only the number of follicular units transplanted, but not the total number of hairs transplanted.
However, each person has a different hair count per follicular unit/graft. There are people with an average of 2.5 hairs per graft/follicular unit, but also people with only 1.5 hairs per graft.
So it can happen that patient A) with 3500 grafts and an average of 2.5 hairs per graft gets 8750 hairs transplanted and patient B) with 3500 grafts and an average of only 1.5 hairs per graft “only” 5250 hairs, a difference of 3500 hairs, which can differ significantly in the before and after result.
Certainly other factors play a role that can visually influence a result, these include things like hair color, hair thickness, hair texture (straight or curly), or whether there is a high or low scalp-hair contrast. All of these factors ultimately influence the visual result of a hair transplant.
If you have any questions about hair transplantation, please feel free to contact me at any time.
Best regards
Andreas Krämer